Sunday, September 9, 2007

No Child Left Behind has seen better days. Under attack from both the right and left, [I] President Bush’s signature education achievement might not survive if some members of Congress get their way. [II]
House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) offered a 435-page legislative draft last month that rewrites several positions and guts to the few measures in the lat that limited-government conservatives support.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants to go one step further and rename the law to something other than No Child Left Behind [III]. …
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who last week fought back against the proposed changes, might be better off with the status quo than trying to reauthorize the law in a hostile Congress. Her biggest gripe was Miller’s attempt to water down the penalties schools face to live up to the law’s testing requirements, but it’s just one of many differences that need to be addressed.
Meanwhile, conservatives who are seeking to trim government bureaucracy, end ineffective programs and restore state and local control in education won’t find much to like in Miller’s 435-page draft. His other changes include new regulations, more programs and fewer options for school choice. Miller has also made no attempt to fix No Child Left Behind’s structural problems. Changes to the school-choice provisions are particularly troublesome given the large number of congressmen who support private schools in their personal life. A report from The Heritage Foundationlast week revealed members of Congress send their kids to private schools at a rate nearly four times that of the general population.